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If someone advocates an ideology that has contempt for the individual and has caused untold economic misery and the deaths of hundreds of millions at the hands of their governments, what would you think of that person?

The ideology I refer to is, of course, socialism and its numerous variations, including the utopian socialists, the Fabian socialists, the National Socialists, and, naturally, the communists. Socialism is simply an economic system where the government (or collective) owns and controls the means of production. Given that the two centuries of socialists’ experiments, whether by utopians, Marxists, or Fabians, always ended in economic failure and a loss of personal liberty, why are people around the globe still proudly proclaiming themselves socialists? Socialist parties are still popular in parts of Europe, Latin American, and in much of Africa. Socialist parties have been elected to power in both Spain and Portugal in recent months. Many college professors and students on U.S. campuses claim to be socialists.

The “national socialists” caused the death of tens of millions of people. The communists in Russia, China, Cambodia and elsewhere caused the collective deaths of more than 100 million people and impoverished billions of others. (I happened to be at the Kremlin in Moscow in August 1992, when the Russia demographers announced they had determined there were 63 million “excess deaths” in the Soviet Union during Josef Stalin’s reign — 1923-53.)

The Third World socialists have kept their countries unnecessarily mired in poverty for a half-century. The democratic socialists gained control in England in 1945 under Clement Attlee. As a result, the British economy was run into the ground. Hence the British people voted to reprivatize their economy under Margaret Thatcher beginning in 1979.

Other democratic socialist economies had the same types of failure, so by the 1980s privatization became the vogue as it was obviously necessary to re-ignite economic growth.

Yet, the socialists keep coming back. They deny or ignore previous failures and say the next time “we will do it right.” Socialism only fails and will continue to fail because its theory is as flawed as its practice.

This article, published by The Seattle PI, is about Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center:

Unnoted by the general media, the Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center conducted a highly informative two-day leadership forum late last month at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond. It attracted transportation policy-makers and professionals from the United States, Canada and all levels of government and covered the full range of issues facing both the West Coast and our own neighborhood.

The conference proceedings, if read and heeded by local officials, would alter drastically the transportation priorities and projects being pursued here. So, for that matter, would the report presented earlier in February to Gov. Christine Gregoire and legislative leaders by the Cascadia Center’s Transportation Working Group.

This article, published by The Tacoma News Tribune, quotes Discovery Institute Fellow Bruce Agnew:

The Cascadia Center, a Seattle-based nonprofit group, plans to hold a meeting soon with Gig Harbor, Tacoma and Des Moines leaders to discuss the water taxi idea. Cascadia is a policy group that studies, among other things, how to improve transportation on the Interstate 5 corridor.

A water taxi system is also scheduled for discussion during a meeting between Cascadia officials and area legislators March 29, said center director Bruce Agnew.

He said the group wants to commission an informal survey that gauges whether people even want the service. Wilbert posted a similar survey on Gig Harbor’s Web site in late 2003. It garnered almost 60 responses, mostly positive, she said.

Cascadia also hopes city leaders will unite and ask the Legislature to fund an in-depth, more scientific study on the need and potential effects of a South Puget Sound water taxi system.

Assume you are a legal political refugee in the United States from a communist country. You are not well educated and have limited skill with the English language, but you are a master stonemason — a real artist in stone.

Because of your skill, you have no trouble getting jobs, but by their very nature your jobs are limited and transitory. In the warm months, you most often work in the Northern states, and in the winter in the Southern states. You do not have one regular employer because you go from specialized job to specialized job and often are paid in cash.

You occasionally want to send money to your elderly parents who still live in the old country, but you cannot use a bank because you do not have a bank account. The reason you do not have a bank account is are required by domestic and international financial regulatory bodies to “know their customers.” Your lack of a permanent address, a regular employer and close family in the United States means you do not meet the banks’ “know your customer” tests. This even though you have a good yearly income, are hardworking, constructive, and law abiding.

This article is forthcoming in Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres. It is available in the meantime on astro-ph at:http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0503298

William Tucker is a Senior Fellow of Discovery Institute

End of the Line: The Failure of Amtrak Reform and the Future of America’s Passenger Trainsby Joseph Vranich
(AEI Press, 204 pages, $25)

Once again, Amtrak is before Congress asking for another handout. Having lost $600 million last year — about average for the 34 years of its existence — the company is once again begging Congress for money.

This time, however, the Bush administration plans to end the charade that Amtrak will one day become profitable. It wants to end the handouts, making Amtrak compete like any private company. Democrats, of course are opposed. They love any government program — even those created by the Nixon administration. Before they begin their annual last-ditch stand, however, they would do well to read Joseph Vranich’s new book.

A former public affairs spokesman at Amtrak, Vranich has one thing to say about Amtrak — it’s a rolling disaster. The government-owned corporation now regularly requires nearly $1 billion a year in subsidies. It is drowning in debt. Two years ago it mortgaged New York’s Penn Station for $300 million to pay three months’ operating losses.

Nearly empty trains roll through Iowa and Montana, subsidizing passengers at a rate of $300 per ride. Meanwhile New York’s cross-Hudson tunnels are a disaster waiting to happen because Amtrak won’t spend the money to improve fire protection and escape routes.

Nature magazine for May 19 has published a number of letters responding to their recent coverage of intelligent design. When science meets religion in the classroom Jerry Coyne Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA Sir: In the Editorial “Dealing with design”, Nature claims that scientists have not dealt effectively with the threat to evolutionary Read More ›

This article, published by The Seattle Times, references a study done by Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center:

According to a study published by the Cascadia Center of the Discovery Institute, Metro in 1988 studied passenger-ferry service on Lake Washington but concluded that the service would be too slow to compete with buses, that it would be hard to build ferry terminals and that the market was questionable.

YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T HEAR ABOUT IT, since it received such little media coverage, but last week, by a nearly 3-1 vote, the United Nations General Assembly urged the world to “prohibit all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.” True, “The United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning,” is not Read More ›